John Uri, shown here during a visit to the Payload Control Center
at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

John Uri,
Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas

Leading
International Space Station research is a "whirlwind"

July 25, 2002
- As a boy, John Uri, enchanted with humans’ first leap off the planet, built models of the first American rockets and spaceships.

Today, at 42,
he still enjoys building models, but hasn’t found time to build
a model of the International Space Station. As a lead scientist
for the International Space Station, he’s been too busy directing
scientific research aboard that orbiting outpost.

“It’s
been a whirlwind,” said Uri, who works in the International
Space Station (ISS) Payloads Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. “I always compare conducting science
on the Space Station to having a dinner party at your house while
it is still being built. Right now, we are at a place with science
on the Space Station where we have served up the appetizers, and
have started on the main course. But the kitchen is still being
expanded with new facilities being added.”

Uri has served
as the lead scientist for the International Space Station’s
first four expeditions. Each research expedition lasts about four
to six months, and science experiments being conducted aboard Space
Station often continue through several expeditions. The Space Shuttle
Endeavour’s STS-111 mission to the Station in June kicked off
research on Expedition Five and was the 28th flight dedicated to
assembling the Space Station. Including launch of the first Space
Station element – the Zarya Control Module in late 1998 —
there have been 28 trips to the Station, 14 by Russian spacecraft
and 14 by U.S. Space Shuttles.

But even before
the first expedition crew took up residence on the Station in November
2000, Uri was working with researchers around the world to prepare
experiments and equipment for the first four research expeditions,
each staffed by a different three-member Station crew.

From September
2000, when the first Expedition One experiments were delivered,
to June 2002, when Expedition Four ended, Uri led the team responsible
for executing 52 different investigations in a variety of scientific
disciplines.

“Some
of these investigations collected valuable medical information that
will help humans safely live and work in space and will also improve
treatments on Earth,” said Uri. “Others studied how the
unique space environment affects materials, cells, and crystals.
And of course, the vantage point of space was ideal for studying
Earth.”

As a lead Space
Station scientist, Uri made sure experiments were conducted as planned,
and scientists were satisfied with the operations and results of
their experiments. Although he is based in Texas, Uri works closely
with the team at NASA’s Payload Operations Center – the
command post for Space Station science activities at NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. He is also in contact
with numerous remote payload control centers and investigator teams
throughout the country, as well as internationally.

During Uri’s
tenure as lead scientist, the Station evolved dramatically. Only
a handful of experiments were conducted on Expedition One. In February
2001, the Shuttle delivered the Destiny Laboratory — the bus-size,
modular lab where most Station science activities take place. Five
different three-member Space Station crews, with the help of many
visiting Shuttle crews, have outfitted the laboratory with seven,
floor-to-ceiling, telephone-booth-size, research racks that are
filled with scientific equipment.

“Science
really hit its stride on Expedition Four,” said Uri. “The
crew spent more than 300 hours on U.S. research, conducting the
most complex and diverse science agenda of any expedition to date.
The Space Station is performing splendidly like a world-class laboratory
in space.”

One of the
important benefits of research on the Space Station is that scientists
can conduct experiments over a longer period of time. Some investigations
returned to Earth after the Space Shuttle’s visit to the Station
in June were in orbit more than a year. Other experiments have grown
several sets of cells, crystals or plants. The Shuttle has returned
those samples to scientists on Earth, and delivered new samples
to the Station for processing.

“The longer
stays in space and the ability to send up new samples and build
on what you are learning makes science inside the Station more like
science in a world-class research institute on Earth,” Uri
said. Since Zarya’s 1998 launch, the Space Station has been
in orbit longer than the total flight time accumulated by all 110
Space Shuttle missions since 1981.

Why leave the
planet to conduct research?

For one thing,
you can’t beat the view of home. The Station crosses the same
area of the planet every three days and covers more than 90 percent
of the populated Earth. Astronauts have photographed fires, volcanoes
and hurricanes. During the four-month Expedition Three research
mission that ended in December 2001, astronaut Frank Culbertson
even photographed the destruction on Sept. 11, 2001, in Lower Manhattan
at the World Trade Center.

“In the
past four decades, astronauts have taken nearly 400,000 images of
Earth,” said Uri. “These images have helped Earth scientists
track both long- and short-term changes, and both natural changes
and human-induced changes like forest clear-cutting. And even school
kids have remotely operated a camera and selected viewing targets
for study from the Space Station.”

Students in
dozens of schools across the United States selected hundreds of
sites, and digital cameras on the Station took more than 1,200 images
of Earth during Expedition Four alone. The images were sent from
the Station to school Web sites, where students can use them for
studies in geology and environmental science.

“As a
student, I was inspired by the early space program, so I think it
is great that the Space Station is actually giving students an opportunity
to participate in experiments,” said Uri. “Students are
experiencing what science is all about — and hopefully will
be inspired like I was at their age.”

In addition
to taking photos of Earth, more than 500 students and teachers have
helped scientists in their labs by loading samples of biological
substances into experiment equipment used to grow crystals on the
Station. This biochemistry experiment and many other Station experiments
study how the unique space environment changes chemical and physical
processes that we take for granted on Earth. There is no place on
Earth to perform research over long periods in microgravity –
the low-gravity environment created as the Station travels around
the planet at more than 17,000 mph.

“Microgravity
changes everything,” said Uri. “Whether you are talking
about the way crystals form, the way materials mix to make metals,
tissues growing in cultures, or even something as simple as a candle
flame.”

During the
first four expeditions, crew members have helped with numerous experiments
that study how microgravity affects plants, crystals and other materials
and processes. Many of these experiments were sponsored and paid
for by industry through NASA’s program that encourages businesses
to do commercial research.

Station experiments
not only study how microgravity affects physical processes, but
how it affects biological processes. On all the expeditions, crew
members serve as test subjects — completing physiological tests
before, during and after their service on the Station. Scientists
are studying the data to learn how microgravity and other aspects
of space flight affect the heart, lungs, muscles, bones and neurovestibular
system.

“If we
are going to leave the planet on even more challenging treks to
Mars or even beyond, we have to learn how living in space affects
humans,” explained Uri. “All these experiments are examining
medical conditions, so results will benefit people on Earth, as
well.”

As a life sciences
graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Uri
has followed this research for most of his career. From 1993 to
1998, he served as the NASA Mission Scientist, leading a team of
scientists who conducted experiments on the Russian space station
Mir.

“The Mir
experience was invaluable as we got science up and running on the
International Space Station,” said Uri. “From Mir, I learned
how complicated it can be to do science when the laboratory is orbiting
hundreds of miles above the planet and scientists are located around
the world. The experience has helped me work on this international
program that has more than 16 nations working together to build
the Station and conduct research.”

Uri is no stranger
to the international community. He speaks English, Hungarian, French
and some Russian.

He was born
in Hungary and lived there for six years before his family moved
to Switzerland where he lived for four years. While in Switzerland,
he built his first spacecraft model — an Apollo Command and
Lunar Module set – shortly before Americans first landed on
the Moon in 1969. That same year, he moved to Hollywood, Calif.,
where he continued building spacecraft models while he attended
Cheremoya Elementary School. He still has friends in California
where he sometimes visits NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett
Field, one of the NASA centers that provide experiments for the
Space Station.

In 1971, Uri
moved to Philadelphia, Penn. — where he lived for 16 years
and attended Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Penn., and the University
of Pennsylvania. He considers his hometowns to be both Philly and
his current home in Bellaire, Texas, near Houston, where his family
has lived for the last 15 years.

In June, Uri
handed over the lead scientist job to a fellow Houston scientist,
Vic Cooley, a Johnson Space Center physicist who will lead Space Station science on Expeditions Five through Seven. The pace of research
is expected to continue on Expedition Five, with the crew scheduled
to conduct almost 300 hours of research on 24 new and continuing
investigations — bringing the total crew research time to more
than 1,000 hours.

Uri will return
for another turn in the science driver’s seat on Expedition
Eight. Until then, he will help scientists on Earth get ready for
future expeditions, and watch the Space Station’s growth as
more Shuttle crews continue to assemble the largest, most complex
research facility ever built off the face of the Earth.

Maybe he’ll
have time for his favorite hobbies — cooking and reading —
and even find time to build a model of the Space Station with his
young daughter.

“I think
a hundred years from now, after we’ve moved out from low-Earth
orbit and on to other places, people won’t just look at how
many experiments we’ve done or when they were done,” said
Uri. “They will say that’s the day the human race left
the planet for good — no turning back. The International Space
Station is our first true address in space."

All text
and photos for this story were provided by Marshall Space Flight
Center.